Resonic is a versatile music player
The PC market for audio players is a little on the crowded side, with free tools to do just about anything you want, so it’s not exactly easy for new programs to make an impression. There are still companies queuing up to try their luck, though, and the latest contender is Resonic, an interesting tool now available in its first public alpha release.
Why should you care? Developers Liqube clearly understand they have to get the fundamentals right first, and the program duly offers support for a host of audio formats. The current list is MP3, MP2, MP1, OGG, M4A, MP4, AAC, MPC, MP+, OPUS, SPX; WMA, WMA Pro, WMA Lossless; WAV, AIFF, FLAC, APE, ALAC, WV, TTA; IT, XM, S3M, MTM and MOD: sounds good to us.
Resonic’s Explorer-like interface makes the program easy to use, too. Just choose a folder and it’ll cycle through each of the songs in sequence (although the usual “shuffle” and “repeat” options are also available).
And whatever playback mode you’re using, as soon as a particular track begins you’ll see a waveform for that song, sometimes handy when you need to seek to some other point. Although if you don’t need it, this can be replaced with a couple of alternative visualizations (the Linear Analyzer or Logarithmic Analyzer) in a click or two.
If you like to control your audio players from the keyboard then the good news is that there are hotkeys for all the main Resonic playback actions (although they’re not yet customizable). And the program includes some nice extra touches, too. So if you need to talk to someone, say, holding down the space bar will conveniently drop the master volume right down, restoring it to normal when you’re done.
Browse the menu and there are one or two small but welcome extras to be found. Like the built-in timer, for instance, which can be set up to sleep, hibernate, lock, log off or power down your PC after a defined period of time.
And we noticed a few thoughtful touches elsewhere. So if you click the “resonic” logo, for instance, instead of just blindly opening its home page, a message explains that the program now wants to launch your web browser, and politely asks if that would be okay with you. A small thing, but it works – immediately you get the feeling that this is a tool you can trust, something which isn’t going to install a browser toolbar (or anything else even faintly dubious) without getting your express permission.
Resonic doesn’t have any single killer feature which would compel you to use it, then. But then it’s only an early alpha version, and already the program is fast, capable, and easy to control and use. If you’re in the market for a simple audio player, take a look: otherwise, keep an eye on any future releases -- it’ll be very interesting to see how the program develops.
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